Alumni reunions are crucial for alumni engagement. Alumni associations across the world regularly organize reunions to reignite the nostalgia in the alumni, get them closer to the alma mater and the alumni community and bring them up to speed on the latest happenings and updates about the institution.
Reunions are of various types, but alumni associations prefer conducting landmark reunions such as 10 (Aluminum Jubilee), 25 (Silver Jubilee) and 50 (Golden Jubilee) in the most prestigious way possible.
Alumni look forward to attending these reunions with the same zeal and enthusiasm that institutions display while organizing the same. Alumni get to meet their old friends, walk down their precious memory lanes, reflect on their journeys, share experiences and reconnect with their favorite teachers. Instead of going by the book, your institution can seize this opportunity to make the reunion sweet, creative and memorable for the alumni.
So, here are five exciting alumni reunion ideas to make the event a great experience for the alumni!
1. Campus Tour
When alumni fly around from places all around the world for their 10-year reunion, your institution should give them something to hold onto until the next reunion. Something that will transport them back to their college days and relive it again. Organizing campus tours will make the reunion memorable for the alumni.
Create a campus route that covers all the important areas of the campus – classrooms, labs, and major landmarks like gymnasiums and clubs. Do not forget to include student hangout spots like cafeterias, dorm rooms, courtyards, library lounges and study halls. Leave funny anecdotes and fond memories from the batch’s time.
You can appoint a tour guide for the alumni to make it interactive. It can be a professor, a student, or any alumni from the class. Volunteering alumni can share their stories, experiences, memories and funny incidents.
Your institution can arrange a fun session with the batch’s favorite lecturer, during which the alumni can talk about their life after graduation and share their fondest memories. Culminate the tour at the university’s cafeteria, where the alumni can have refreshments. Put up photo booths and message boards at famous spots for alumni to click pictures and leave notes for posterity.
2. Outdoor Movie Night
A movie night is the perfect recipe for the institution to bring alumni together for a memorable experience. It is budget-friendly and can be easily organized. Pick a favorite movie of the batch you are going to invite, and make sure the cinema resonates well with the audience. If not, you can encourage the alumni to pick a film of their choice. The movie can be a classic from their days or a campus-related one. You can also put a poll in the alumni WhatsApp groups and let alumni vote for the movie.
Choose a large outdoor area on the campus like an amphitheater, a sprawling lawn or an open courtyard that can accommodate a good number of people. You can set up the screen and the projector there. Add string lights, bean bags, and couches to the venue. Make sure you choose a cozy winter evening for the event. Your institution can provide blankets and sweatshirts with the alumni logo, graduation year, or the date of the reunion printed on them to the alumni as memorabilia.
Put up popcorn stands, famous canteen refreshments that alumni used to like and snacks such as sodas and nachos – which any movie theatre offers to reflect the theme. Before the movie starts, run a slideshow or short video of college photos and highlights from everyone’s time together. It sets a sentimental tone and brings back lots of fond memories.
3. Late Night “Open Mic” Storytelling
Who doesn’t love a night where you get to hear different stories, experiences and old memories of their long-lost friends? A casual meeting like this will help alumni reconnect with each other, relax, and grow closer.
The purpose of this event is to make alumni unwind, so the venue you are going to choose should reflect that. For instance, you can select the classrooms for the nostalgia to kick in or the dormitories where they spent many nights of their college life.
Your institution can come up with a theme such as “best college experiences”, “ college confessions”, or “embarrassing moments”. Themes like these are the perfect icebreakers and will light everyone up. If you think themes are gonna restrict people from opening up, go flexible on it. Encourage alumni to share anything funny, interesting, and inspiring.
As the event is gonna be a closed affair, go with a host or MC who’s closer to the alumni. It can be their favorite lecturer or anyone among them. The host can share a funny story to break the ice and encourage others to take it up.
Allot 6-8 minutes for each alumnus to speak, keep it spontaneous. Randomly pick people and encourage them to get creative! End the session with a group toast or cheer to celebrate all the stories and shared memories. After the event, compile all the stories into a book and send it to the alumni in either physical or digital formats.
Excited about hosting a reunion? Here’s a guide on how to organize a successful one!
4. Alumni Award Ceremony
In the spirit of the 10th alumni reunion, your institution can host an awards ceremony that can be meaningful and lighthearted to honor alumni from all walks of life. Come up with a wide range of categories that covers all the important aspects like “Outstanding Alumnus”, “Alumni Leader”, “Trailblazers of the Class”, “Best Alumni Entrepreneurs”, and some quirky titles such as “Class Diva”, “Still Looks Same”, “Unexpected Career Shifts”, “The Introvert” to imbibe the pride and nostalgia among alumni.
Open the nominations beforehand, encourage alumni to nominate their peers (or themselves) and get a video bite from the nominees about how delighted they are about the nomination. Circulate these videos on social media accounts where the event can attain traction. Set up QR codes or polls on social media platforms and the alumni portal so that alumni can vote.
Order custom trophies and plaques that reflect each award that is being given. Encourage an active, energetic alumnus to be the host of the event. Encourage the recipients to provide a quick acceptance speech. Conclude the event with a group toast and lunch/dinner. Offer memorabilia to alumni attendees as a token of appreciation. Share the award photos and videos on social media and tag alumni for post-event promotion.
5. Game Night with Alumni
The whole purpose of organizing an alumni reunion is to make alumni reconnect with each other and strengthen their bonds. Your institution can make it memorable and entertaining through games that encourage alumni to speak their minds and also to listen to their friends.
Conversational games like Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever will elicit laughs and conversations between alumni. You can play Fact or Fiction where the alumni will be narrated about an incident from the past and should guess whether it happened.
Pair this game night with a barbeque evening where alumni can feel relaxed. Don’t spring this up on alumni; make sure they have been informed about it before. Promote this game night reunion on all social media platforms, and come up with promotional content like banners and creative posts that highlight the event’s theme.
For instance, you can post an important memory from the batch’s time at college and put up a caption saying more to follow to generate curiosity. Choose an alumni from the batch to host the event. Come up with questions from alumni’s time at the institution and drop questions with that period’s pop culture for entertainment.
This game night will definitely bring alumni closer. It is the ice breaker for alumni who don’t know each other, as they will get to know about them in the most lively way.
Need more ideas on alumni events? Here are some creative ideas to make them memorable!
In a Nutshell
Alumni reunions are an opportunity for the alma mater to rekindle the sense of camaraderie, brotherhood, and belonging that alumni have experienced for a while again. Every year, institutions have multiple batches of graduating and organizing reunions regularly will boost alumni engagement.
When alumni realize they are being valued even many years after graduation, they will happily come forward to help the alma mater. The ideas listed above can be improvised and mixed according to the institution’s needs. Do what it takes to make the reunion memorable!
